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Indiana Magazine of HistoryItalians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic MobilityHumbert S. NelliBook ReviewJohn V. LombardiIndiana Magazine of HistoryBloomington, INIndiana University Department of History in cooperation with the Indiana
Historical Society1971267180-182

Professor Nelli's analysis of the role of Italians in Chicago makes a monumental contribution to the
understanding of immigrant communities and the process of their assimilation into American life.
This book, in exhaustive detail, investigates every aspect of Italian immigrant life in Chicago from the origins of the immigrants in the old country to the flight of their
assimilated children to the suburbs. Without a doubt this volume is the most thorough treatment of
the subject available.

In tracing the origins of Italians who settled in Chicago, in analyzing their settlement patterns once in the United States and particularly in Chicago, in reconstructing their economic activities and political behavior, in dissecting the
relationship between Italians and crime, and in describing the role of community institutions in the
process of assimilating Nelli has touched on practically every important aspect of immigrant life.
What makes this tour de force even more impressive is the solid and exhaustive research on which it
is based. The ample complement of maps and tables alone gives graphic testimony to the thoroughness
and imaginativeness of Nelli's methodology.

Yet the sheer quantity of information, the vast array of facts and statistics should not obscure the
new interpretations coming from this study. Ethnic neighborhoods, in Chicago at any rate, had none of the rigidity and cohesiveness that immigrant folklore would
give them. Indeed, residential mobility turns out to be a major characteristic of Italian settlement
patterns. Equally interesting is Nelli's description of Italian crime. While showing the
independence of American Italian crime from control or indeed any substantial links with old world
organizations, he also illustrates how crime helped Italians assimilate. "The
'syndicate' required the repression of lingering old-world prejudices against
fellow members from other provinces or countries. … Because of its function as a means of
economic betterment and social mobility, crime occupied a place in the acculturation of Italians in
the United States, along with immigrant-community institutions, education, the padrone system, and
politics" (p. 155).

While this study will surely become required reading for all those interested in immigration history,
it does present some difficulties. Its major failing stems from the sheer quantity of material
accumulated and compiled by the author. This is a hard book to read. Events, illustrations,
statistics, and analysis follow one upon the other with little time out for reflection or summation.
Time and again the reader looks in vain for a pause for perspective. Each chapter, it is true, ends
with a summing up, but these small summaries do not add up to the interpretive overview that would
give this book a cohesiveness it now lacks. But despite this
weakness Nelli has produced a first rate study.